Turns the partner's purchase order into a WooCommerce order
The order is created in the WooCommerce order list without the contract terms attached, so it can price at the storefront's listed rate unless those terms are mapped in first.
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When a purchase order lands in your WooCommerce store and nothing acknowledges it back to the partner, their system logs the order as unconfirmed and stops trusting your stock figure until someone checks it manually. Wholesale orders are being pushed into a platform built to take a credit card from a single shopper, not to carry a buyer's contract terms. The order gets created, but without those terms attached it prices against the storefront's listed rate instead of the one the partner agreed.
What actually shows up as a deduction on our remittance?
Most of what gets charged back traces to a document that was late, wrong, or built against the wrong reference inside the WooCommerce order. A carton label built from the wrong field, or an acknowledgement sent after the partner's window closes, both land as a line on the next remittance rather than a conversation beforehand.
- Late acknowledgement
- Late ASN
- ASN non-compliance
- Routing guide
- Labelling
What has to be true before our first order goes through?
Before an order confirms against contract terms instead of the listed retail price, a few things in the WooCommerce install need to be settled. These are the points we work through with your team before the connector goes live.
- Confirm which plugin or theme currently owns stock and order status in the WooCommerce install
- Generate the credentials the WooCommerce connector needs to authenticate against the store
- Map the buyer's contract terms so the order prices correctly instead of against the storefront rate
- Run a plugin and theme conflict check against the connector before the first live purchase order
Which documents actually move, and what do they do in our store?
Each document below assumes a specific WooCommerce order sits behind it, and each one fails a different way when that order isn't current.
Tells the partner what actually shipped
Built from whichever plugin last recorded the shipment against the order. If that record is stale, the ASN goes out describing cartons that never left the warehouse.
Confirms the order was created and what it contains
Sent back from the order as it sits in WooCommerce at the point of acceptance, including any lines changed since the original purchase order arrived.
Applies the partner's change to an order already sitting in the store
A quantity cut or date move has to land on the same order record, not a new one, or the store and the partner end up counting two different things.
Confirms a document was received, not that it was right
This isn't an object WooCommerce holds natively. It travels alongside the other documents and closes the loop on whether the 850, 856 or 810 actually arrived.
Tells the partner what's available to sell
Read from whichever plugin last wrote a stock figure into the order or product record. A conflict between plugins can leave two different numbers in play at once.
Bills the partner for what the order actually contained
Priced against the contract terms agreed with the buyer, not the figure shown on the storefront, which is the retail price a shopper would pay.
Every document here depends on the WooCommerce order being current, and that depends on which plugin touched it last.
Does WooCommerce actually handle EDI on its own?
WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce platform built on WordPress, and it exposes REST endpoints for things like products, but it wasn't built to hold a trading partner's acknowledgement or ASN requirements. A prebuilt connector exists for it, and setting it up means generating the credentials it asks for and confirming which plugin or extension owns the order record once the connector is reading from it.
- X12
- EDIFACT
- AS2
- SFTP
- Cloud storage
What gets watched once the account is live?
Once orders are flowing, three things get checked continuously rather than left until a chargeback appears. This is what we watch against your WooCommerce install week to week.
Acknowledgement and ASN timing
Every 850 and 856 gets checked against the partner's stated window, not just against when the order shipped. A late acknowledgement gets flagged before it becomes a deduction.
Plugin and theme conflict watch
A new plugin or theme update can change how stock or order status is written. We run a conflict check against the connector so a site change doesn't silently break the inventory advice.
Invoice pricing check
Each 810 is checked against the contract terms mapped at onboarding, not the storefront's listed price, so a pricing drift doesn't reach the partner's remittance unnoticed.
What buyers ask before they bring a WooCommerce account on
Our WooCommerce install depends on a few plugins for stock and fulfilment. Does keeping the EDI side running mean hiring someone who understands that plugin stack?
No. We run the plugin and theme conflict check as part of onboarding and keep watching it afterwards, which is the part that normally needs a developer's attention.
We already have a provider filing EDI for an older WooCommerce store on a separate domain. Does bringing this install onto Cogent² mean switching them out?
Not necessarily. The two can run side by side. We only need to be clear about which store the connector is authenticating against so the credentials don't cross over.
What do you actually need from our team to get the WooCommerce connector authenticated and live?
The credentials the connector requires to authenticate against your store, and confirmation of which plugin currently owns stock and order status, so the mapping starts from the right place.
If this partner changes their carton labelling rule or their routing guide, who goes back into the WooCommerce order to update it?
We do. The labelling and routing guide checks sit on our side of the account, so a change on the partner's end gets applied without you editing the order yourself.
Our partner's ASN cutoff falls not long after our warehouse plugin marks an order as shipped. Can that actually be hit from WooCommerce?
It depends on how quickly the shipment record reaches the order after picking finishes. We check that gap during onboarding against the partner's stated cutoff before confirming it's workable.
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